Studying the bodies of research available has driven Facebook to conclude that the reason people were feeling bad was because they were spending a lot of time passively consuming information.

This conclusion prompted Mark Zuckerberg to encourage users to spend their time on Facebook engaging with their connections instead of just browsing the newsfeed with no purpose.

In the next months, Facebook has seen a decrease in time spent inside the platform by 5% namely 2.14 minutes per day per user (source: techcrunch.com).

With these new tools, Facebook is addressing the quantity factor.

This is how they will help you limit your time on Facebook and Instagram:

They will tell you how long you’ve spent inside these platforms;

You will be able to set daily limits;

You will be able to temporarily mute your push notifications.

In our article 5 time management tips & tricks for entrepreneurs one of our recommendations was to treat checking social media accounts like any other task and assign an hour or two a day. If this is one of your goals, these new tools come in really handy.

These new features will be available in the coming months. To find them tap the menu in the bottom-right corner of the app and scroll down to “Your time on Facebook”.

On Instagram, you’ll find “Your activity” inside the settings menu, which you access by tapping the gear icon on your profile.

We want the time people spend on Facebook and Instagram to be intentional, positive and inspiring. Our hope is that these tools give people more control over the time they spend on our platforms and also foster conversations between parents and teens about the online habits that are right for them.

Ameet Ranadive, Product Management Director at Instagram, and David Ginsberg, Director of Research at Facebook